I have a favor to ask. Wizards of the Coast has stated that
4000 people must sign a petition as proof of interest before
they will port the new Master Tools program to the
Macintosh. Signing the petition (a web form) is very simple
and the page clearly states that the names and email
addresses will not be shared with anyone other than Wizards.
Would you please consider mentioning this dilemma either in
the newsletter or in an email to your subscribers? I'm sure
some of the subscribers, like me, use Macs. Thank you.

Understand How Deadly Combat Can Help Your Game
The spirit of this week's tips is to have even more fun in
your game by making combat more deadly. Your goal should not
be to knock off more PCs each session (unless you're running
Paranoia ;) or to flex your game master muscles to show your
players who's boss. Rather, using deadly combat as a
technique in your sessions can have any/all of the following
benefits:

Increased tension and excitement due to the added element of risk.

Players avoid unnecessary combat more often.

Players seek other solutions to conflicts than combat, and roleplay more often.

Players begin to use their heads during combat and perform more creative actions rather than always going toe-to-toe or chop-till-you-drop.

Players have more respect for your game world.

Deadly combat can also ruin your campaign. As the players
adapt to deadlier combat, so must you:

Reduce the number of combat encounters, or at least the need for combat.

Always provide players a choice of fighting or not, unless the players make a poor decision which puts them in a combat-only situation.

And watch for players who start powergaming by min/maxing
their skills and statistics to become fighting machines.
They may be doing this just to survive the deadlier combat,
in which case you should address the issue with your
players. Perhaps your game is too combat heavy or deadly...

Avoid Modifying Rules
In trying to make combat tougher, avoid modifying your
game's rules or installing new house rules. This is
especially true if you make such changes in mid-campaign.
The new rule(s) may destroy game balance. It would be a bad
blow to your group if PCs died because of an unbalanced new
rule--your players would justifiably be upset and
frustrated.

Chat with your players and get their opinions and approval
on any new rules you'd like to add.

Turn Combat Into A Game Within A Game
This is my favorite tip and, I believe, the best way for you
to become one of the best combat encounter game masters out
there. This technique takes time, planning and effort, but
it's worth it in the long run!

Your goal is to turn combat into a game within a game for
yourself. A self-challenge. The rules are simple: defeat the
PCs using the least amount of in-game resources while
playing foes to the maximum of their ability.

Doing the most with the least, in other words.

Any GM can bring down a party with super-tough monsters, who
are min/maxed to the hilt and armed with powerful artifacts
and magic items. But, imagine the pleasure (and reputation!)
of taking down a party of skilled adventurers with only a
kobold armed with a sharpened stick and runny nose, in a
dense forest? Or having a lone stormtrooper, wounded and
with no weapons, take-out all the PCs and hi-jack their
ship while travelling in deep space.

You need to abide by your game's own rules and don't cheat
by giving foes non-standard abilities just to tip the scales
in your favour. The odds should be stacked against you (even
if it's just because there are more players' brains vs. just
yours). And that's what makes it fun.

Who cares if the kobold dies? You can create a billion more.
But each combat you play, you'll be learning. You'll be
thinking about tactics and strategies. You'll be putting
yourself in the stormtrooper's shoes and asking yourself,
"what would I do?" You'll be tracking what works and what
doesn't and building on a growing library of GM knowledge.

It's the mindset that counts here. You pretend you're the
foes and make the most of it against the characters (which
is different than playing GM vs. players--something you
should avoid).

It's a game within a game. And your combat will become much
more lethal in the long-run if you play it as such.

Use The Players' Own Tactics Against Them
Learn from what your players do. Collectively, they have
much more brainpower than you. And they have all those
moments between turns to visualize and think about what's
going on.

Watch what the players do, notice what works and let your
NPCs and monsters employ the same tactics and strategies.

Also, let your players set all the precedents in terms of
rules interpretations and actions. If your foes succeed
because of a judgement call over an ambiguous rule or a
situation which is not covered by the rules, then your
players may object or feel you're being unfair.

But, if you allow your players the first success, then
thanks to that favourable judgement call, you are now free
to use that same strategy against them in the future. The
precedent has been set.

Purposefully Take Prisoners
Often, the tip is "take no prisoners". But, I think if more
PCs became the playthings of their foes, then the shame,
embarrassment and lack of closure (i.e. death) makes combat
much more threatening to the players.

D&D 3E, for example, has very good subdual rules, which foes
can use to take characters prisoner more often.

Prisoners can be ransomed back to the party's mentor/boss
(oh the shame!), used as hostages, eaten, used as bait, etc.

The survivors, of course, will try to rescue the prisoners.
Just remember Tips #3 & #4 above to make on-going rescue
attempts tougher and tougher. Someday, the PCs may just
decide to pay the darn ransom rather than attempt a rescue,
because it's safer!

Have Multiple Foes Focus On The Weakest Characters Vs. Spreading One Foe Out Per Character
Last week I nearly managed to kill the toughest PC in the
party with some big fat rats just by focusing the rats'
attacks on that single character. Rather than having the
rats attack on masse and spreading them out around the
party, I chose to have them leap from hidden places above
onto the warrior in pairs, over and over again.

This tactic was pretty effective. But, next session, I'm
going to have the rats focus on the weakest characters and
then we'll see some bloodshed!

Have Foes Give Another, Final Hack To Finish Off
When a character goes down, instead of moving the foe onto
a new PC, have him deliver a final couple of chops to the
downed character to finish the job.

Also, if there's time, have the foe loot the PC too. That
tactic alone will drive your players into a frenzy and their
fear of falling in battle will increase dramatically!

One final word--a repeated word of caution. All of these
tips should serve to increase the enjoyment of your games.
Deadlier combat often results in more roleplaying and/or
more careful thinking by the players. And your goal should
be to challenge your players more, not kill more of their
characters off every session.

And, if the death rate in your campaign starts to rise, be
quick to measure how your players react. If they aren't
liking it, then switch back to your previous style of play,
or reduce the amount of combat in your stories (many groups
never have any combats at all, or they resolve them with one
or two dice rolls and move on).

I have found that making each player wary of what the others
are up to forms a better caution/inquisitive/aggressive
rivalry and makes players compete to be better.

I have two friends that constantly disagree with each other
while gaming. Totally fed up with this, I finally started
giving them small, handwritten notes that said, in bright
red letters, "TOP SECRET; FOR YOUR EYES ONLY... Then I
would list a task for them, such as "Keep this information
secret for this game and you'll receive..."

While the first message was being read, the other guy kept
saying "What's it say? When do I get a note?" Then, when
they get their note, they get a feel for what the other
players are up to. I've sometimes only given out one note,
with a "...do it or your buddies will get all the good
stuff!"

Given the varieties of this ploy, game masters must take
great heed to be fair and not play favorites or blatantly
lead the adventurers into a sudden demise. Only bad
feelings will occur and you've missed the point of the
exercise.

A Player's Perspective On Roleplaying vs. Combat
From: Sarah Heacock

There is nothing more frustrating than spending three years
rounding your character out, buying things with XP that are
in-character--even if they have little to NO effect on the
game, developing friendships, and all the other sorts of
things that one would consider roleplaying, only to start
feeling that your RPing is being used against you.

ie. all of those you have befriended are slaughtered
without warning, for one plot or another.

And that those who have created combat-oriented characters
are having more successes/better odds of success than simply
roleplaying through things. (And having the Story Teller
breeze through moments when "all" you are trying to do is
develop a relationship for a person, in favor of the tests
needed to create a new magical toy or set up the allies for
the next big fight.) A character WILL be scarred if they
start feeling that their friendship is costing their friends
their lives.

It is extremely easy to reward a combat-oriented character
(even one that gets that way because they know how to play
the rules to make a "weak" physical character effectively
strong in combat anyway) for the choices they make in
spending XP. From my point of view, it is a lot harder to
include backgrounds of characters and what they care about
WITHOUT doing it by taking away those things. ie. using it
as an impetus to make the character care about where you
want their attention focused.

..And a player can start to sense when they are being
targeted because they have put care into a character. At
which point, there are two options:

You stop RPing the character in order to play "catch up"
and try to play the same game the Story Teller is rewarding,

you stop having fun and eventually realize that playing a
game you aren't having fun at, well... what's the point of
play without fun?

[Johnn: Sarah has a good point here about penalizing
characters with background elements and characters that are
developed well during play. What point is making new friends
and having a family if they are just going to be used as
future leverage against the PC? Perhaps some balance could
be achieved by giving characters as many benefits from these
relationships as they receive "penalties"? i.e. a birthday
gift, a juicy piece of information, some timely help, some
freebies...]

Helping Players Develop Their Characters
From: Indigo Shift

Good issue, as usual...thought I'd throw in my two cents:

Personally, my favorite way of getting my players involved
in developing their characters is to sit them down after
about their fourth session of playing their new character.
This gives them enough time to figure out the basics of
their characters' personalities.

Right before the game, I give each of them a blank sheet of
paper and have them write down what they think are their
characters' personal short and long-term goals. I stress
to them that these don't have to be very well thought-out or
even "written in stone"; just some basic ideas they can jot
down in ten minutes or so. I'm always amazed at how
detailed and introspective these goals turn out once I say
that. :)

Once they're done, I take the sheets and file them away. I
wait for about four more sessions to pass, then show these
goals to the players again, so they can make any changes
they feel necessary. By then, the average player has
thought these things through pretty well. I make a copy for
them, and keep a copy for myself.

Then I start planning adventures around these goals. You'd
be surprised how many of them overlap, or relate to each
other. In this way, everyone gets a chance at the
spotlight, and (more often than not) everyone gets very
involved. Works like a charm, and I recommend it
wholeheartedly.

And now for something completely silly.

One of the other ways I get players involved in roleplaying
other than "hack and slash" is to award "Brownie Points".
I've been doing this for five or six years, and to this day
I have no idea what the points are redeemable towards. But
that doesn't stop the players from trying to earn them! Go
figure.

I do silly things like award 500 Brownie Points to the
player who tried their hardest to keep everyone else on
task, or 250 Brownie Points to the player who went out to
their car to fetch the "mood CD" of the night. I award
1500+ to the player who played in character, even if it
meant disaster. Note that I also award regular XP for such
things. I think they like it when I say, "Wow! That was
great! Give yourself XXXX Brownie Points..."

At this point, I think they realize that I have no clue what
these points can be used for, or even if they're usable at
all. They just collect them for fun.

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